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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes  5 sounds | Message 105 of 127 15 May 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged |
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I've decided to put my vocabulary challenge on hold. It really isn't working. I sort of gave up on making flashcards 4 days ago. However, I haven't done any reps for quite some time now, and I'm not missing that, tbh. I need more fun and less hassle. I totally understand what a difference 25 words a day would make, but it's just not cutting it for me. I want to master the words I already know but massacre first.
I'll probably take some BBC article and look up all the words I want to be able to pronounce, and do that everyday. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 106 of 127 16 May 2009 at 2:33am | IP Logged |
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My speaking is back, and with the Rs!!! (most of the time, duh...)
I can't believe it. I recorded a bunch of easy tests in English and it sounds really good to my ears - much better than what I recorded a couple of days ago, anyway. For the first time, I'm quite proud of what I've recorded, which is good - I don't cringe when it play it back! I'll keep my fingers crossed till I'm over and done with my oral exam, but my Rs are more and more stable. I'm still no go at improvising tho. Oh well, one step at a time, I'm sure it'll get better soon =) I think the main culprit was the vocabulary I felt forced to use - I don't do posh that well, got told I sounded uneducated and slangy, took it personally and had the biggest "speaker's block" ever. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 107 of 127 16 May 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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I had the best insomnia ever. Oh well, going to bed at 8 am isn't *that* bad.
I'm super happy today, and completely pumped for workin. I got the feeling that everything will be alright somehow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7019 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 108 of 127 16 May 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
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Yay! \o/
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| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 109 of 127 04 July 2009 at 5:56pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, did some spring-cleaning on my log again. I don't want to find myself with 1K messages, I don't like messy stuff!
My new numbers : 634/10,000 (-> American English) and 732/10,000 (-> overall). Technically, since this is supposed to be a 4-year challenge, my numbers look good, so I'm not complaining here. However, I'm not so gung ho about the whole listening challenge any more. Finding stuff to listen to is really hard. Sometimes, I just write "I listen to English for 3 hours" so that I don't have to actually count the hours, because it's grueling work. I don't think that underestimating the amount of hours I'm raking in is a sin - I'm scared of the outcome of the experiment, tbh. If I don't sound native-like by the time I reach 10K hours, I'll be very sad, and that's probably why I'm scared of crossing the 1K threshold. I could be there by the end of the month, or even earlier, but I don't think I want to go that fast. Oh well, I'll work on my vocabulary challenge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 110 of 127 08 July 2009 at 1:50am | IP Logged |
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I voice chatted with quite a few Americans today, and got told 3 times that I sounded native. Then they often say a few minutes later that I have "almost" no accent.
I did scare the heck out of my first two friends thoguh. They were like "are you AMERICAN?!! This is so scary" lol. It never happened to me before, so I'm totally happy :p I ordered some program to work on pronunciation, I'll see whether it's good or not when I get it. I have "almost" no accent, so I guess i'm approaching the "near-native" zone or so, but I want more. It's not good enough, it's still foreign ;-) This challenge really is a lot of fun - I'm also listening to loads more American stuff again. I had stopped a little, that's not too good. Listening to a lot of American things does help my pronunciation. I'm now a 100% sure that sounding totally native in any language is possible, even if I'm still quite far from sounding 100% native myself. There's a big difference between "advanced" and "perfect", so yeah. I also got rid of my Chicago accent (well, pretty much) and apparently, I improved my pronunciation in the process. I voice chatted with a Chicagoan today, and I heard her accent, so that means I don't sound like her. I'm quite happy, because the accent is cute, but not neutral enough for me. Edited by fairyfountain on 08 July 2009 at 4:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6136 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 111 of 127 08 July 2009 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
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Okay, I'M SO FREAKING HAPPY RIGHT NOW!
And hey, I needed to shout that =) I just finished calling an American woman, and here's the conversation (sort of). It's quite hilarious, and pretty awesome! Me: Hello, are you there? He: ...you sound like youre american. Where are you at? Me: France Her: you really don't sound french though Me: I'm French (saying where I live and stuff) Her: is this a joke Me: No, it's not a joke Her: i dont really believe youre french so say something in french I said something in French, but we ended up hanging up because the sound was bad. Even after that, she still had doubts. So, either *she* was pulling my leg, or the bad connection played its part in the whole thing and helped me fool her. That said, we talked for several minutes. Most of the time, Americans find me out after the first two sentences. I'm defo doing something right here, I'll keep working!!! =) Edited by fairyfountain on 08 July 2009 at 4:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6087 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 112 of 127 08 July 2009 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
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Congrats on some successful chats! :-D
Looks like someone's making progress. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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